Angel of the Kingdom
by Sergeant Phoenix
Summary: They thought the adventure was over. But, one remnant of the Zeal Kingdom has returned and is here to claim what is his. Crono and his companions don't know who he is, but, Magus does......CT/FF7 crossover. R&R, plz! Rated R for later chapters.
1. Foreword and Prologue

            Square-Enix owns all characters within this story, save for the ones of my own invention. And I shamelessly borrowed a line from "The Lord of the Rings". Sue me, please, I beg you! :p~Sergeant Phoenix

Foreword

            Everything begins and ends with one simple thing.  One word that we've all known since we could talk, that we've been hearing since we were born.  Your parents probably taught it to you right after "mama" and "dada".  It's a word you hear everyday, in all it's different, yet similar meanings.  Maybe you even hear it every hour, in one form or another.

            Everything begins and ends with one simple thing, so simple and so common that maybe you haven't figured out what that one thing is.  Then again, maybe you have.

            That one simple thing, the ignition factor that brings about all conflict in this world; "we are all bound by this one _Fate_, this one _doom_...."  In our lives, it will both make us and it will break us.  It will build our lives up and then tear them to pieces, leaving them to waft in the wind like paper strips, only to be taped and mended back together over and over again.  

            And unless you're very, very lucky.....this continues on until the day you die.

            When you have it, you take it for granted.  You deserve it.  You were born to have it.  "Life owes you this."

            _No._

            Life does not owe you this.  Life owes you _nothing_, while you owe it _everything_.  

            Be forever aware that once you lose this one thing, you may never find it again.  And that would be a tragedy indeed.

But, it happens.  Never think that it will always be there.  The second that you believe that it will always be there, you turn around, and it's gone.  The second you do turn around, you think "hey, wait........".  You look around, but it's nowhere to be seen.

This one thing, "this one Fate, this _one doom_...."....

It is a great creator and yet, it is the ultimate destroyer.

It is the most powerful God-given force this world has ever seen or ever will see for all time that has yet to come.

Love.

Prologue ~ Events Long Past

_Then was kindled within him a thirst..._

A thirst of fierce fever 

_Hope, love, doubt, desire, which will consume him_

_Forever._

_                                    --Mary Shelley, "Prometheus Unbound"_

            "Schala...."

            "Yes...?"

            The youth with the long silver hair stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.  He moved her blue hair aside and kissed her neck gently as she stared out her bedroom window.  Sunlight peered in on them both, illuminating the room and casting their shadows onto the floor.

            "Are you worried....?" he whispered.

            "I'm always worried lately.....you should know better than that, Seph...." she replied as she closed her eyes, leaning back into the embrace.

            "You won't have anything to worry about soon," he said, resting his head on her shoulder.  "Soon."

            "I fear for you," Schala said, turning around to face him.  She took him by his shoulders, looking up into his glowing turquoise eyes.  "What if you're discovered....?  Before you're ready...?  Mother..."

            "Don't worry," he replied.  "There isn't a man in the Kingdom that can hurt me.   I'm more powerful than any Enlightened has ever been."

            "You overestimate yourself," Schala warned.  "You're bad about doing that."

            "But, it's the truth.  All the Gurus said so; Melchior, Balthasar, Gaspar.  Even your mother said so! Even Professor Hojo!"

            "It's still best to be cautious...whether that is the truth or not," Schala replied.  "Lavos...Lavos is the most powerful being in the world.  And mother believes that she _controls_ it..."

            "Just as she believes that she controls me," the youth said.  "And you know how much truth there is to that."

            "You are her bodyguard...you're supposed to protect her," Schala stated quietly, turning around to look out the window once again.  The youth let go of her and turned around, angry.

            "That....that _thing_ Lavos...!  It should be destroyed!  Don't you _understand_, Schala?" he said, taking her by the shoulders.  Schala whipped around and covered his mouth with her hand, watching the entrance to the room.  She looked up at him.

            "What's the _matter_ with you!?" she said in a hushed tone.  "Don't say such things!!  What if someone should hear you?"

            "Let them hear me, then.  I don't care," he replied.  He sighed.  "I didn't mean to yell.  But, I don't understand why no one else sees what's happening.  This whole Lavos thing will be the death of the kingdom if we don't do something!  It's the entire reason your mother has gone mad and you _know_ it...!  You know it, Schala...."

            "......my mother will do what she will," Schala said.  "What you're trying to do will only end in ruin, Sephiroth.....what mother is trying to do will only end in ruin as well.....there is no escape for the Kingdom of Zeal.  Zeal will fall, eventually.  I know it in my heart and I can see it with my eyes."

            "Maybe so.....but, we have to try," he replied.  "Futile or not, we have to try....I won't go down without a fight.  You know that."

            There was a loud knock at the door.  The two teenagers turned around, startled.

            "Yes...?" Schala answered, going to the door and opening it.  "What is it....?"

           "Your mother requests the presence of her bodyguard, princess," the man said.  He was a short man with small glasses.

            "Yes, Melchior, of course," Schala replied.  She turned around and was startled, as the young man was already at her side.  She looked up into his glowing eyes.  "Mother wants you."

            "I know..." he said.  He stepped out of the room, giving her one last look.  "I'll be back soon."

            Melchior nodded at the princess and shut the door as they left.

            Schala watched the door for a moment, then pressed her back against the wall.  She looked up at the ceiling as she sunk down to the floor and began to cry.


	2. Here and There

Please be aware that this story is going to move very slowly in the first few chapters, so just hang with me.  ~SP

Chapter 1 ~ Here and There

            "Crono!"

            It was morning in Guardia Kingdom.  The sun had started to rise again, as was expected of it, over the tops of the trees in Guardia Forest and shining orange light onto the buildings in the nearby city of Truce.  People were only just then waking up and eating breakfast.  It wasn't quite time to be up and off to work just yet, but time was quickly catching up with the people of the land.

            It was a small Kingdom, Guardia, but then it had to be because it was a small Planet.  The largest cities on the planet were Truce, on the northern continent, Porre, on the southern continent, Medina, on the western continent, and finally, Choras on the southeastern continent.  There were a great number of smaller settlements in the surrounding areas, but most of them of no real importance and thus not listed on the world maps in classrooms, etcetera.  

            Not everyone had been all around the world, even as small as it was.  But, to one young man living in Truce, the adventure would never end.  He could visit every continent on the Planet and he still wasn't satisfied.  He knew what was out there and he wanted to see more of it, no matter how much time it took him to do it.

            "Cro-no!"

            The female voice rang in his ears as he was being shaken by the shoulders in his bed.  The person bounced him up and down, evidently not in a patient mood.  He looked up from under the blanket.

            "What do you wa-aannt….??" He whined, burying his head back in the pillow. 

            "You have to get up, Crono!  It's 6 o'clock in the morning and you said you'd help me in the woods near Porre today!"

            "Alright, alright….I'll get up…."

Ten minutes later…

            Crono came quickly down the stairs, seeing his mother, Jina, and Lucca standing at the doorway.  

            "Do you need any money, dear?"

            "No, mom, I have enough," Crono said, opening the front door.  He smiled to himself.

            If she only knew how much money he really _did_ have.  He had enough money to support his mother and himself for a very long time.  Marle's father, King Frederich Guardia the 33rd, had promised to make sure that neither his family nor Lucca's, ever went hungry or without a home.

            "What about lunch?"

            "I have enough for that; we'll eat at the café in Porre," Lucca said, standing behind him.  "We'll be okay!"

            "If you kids say so," she replied, letting the both of them outside.  "Be back soon."

            They stepped out onto the sidewalk in the city of Truce, the Epoch sitting in the middle of an unoccupied street.  It would be bustling with activity only a few hours later, with people making their different ways to work and setting their children off to school.  

            Crono and Lucca hopped inside the unguarded Epoch, Lucca having been quite sure that no one in the area would have been smart enough to know how to get in it, much less operate it.  The cockpit rose back up into the ship as they both fastened their seatbelts, Lucca sitting in the pilot seat.  She flipped a few switches, which started the engine whirring quietly, and finally the burners that lifted them up high into the sky and off to Guardia Castle.

            "Lucca told me to be ready and standing here at 6 in the morning, now, she had better be here…." Marle said, tapping her food impatiently.  

            "Maybe they were running a little late, your highness," the chancellor told her.  "Things like that happen, you know."

            "I'll bet Crono just overslept again, Jacob," she said, more to herself than to the chancellor.  Crono _always_ overslept.  "It doesn't seem to matter if he gets four hours or four_teen_ hours…"  

            "What exactly are you three going to Porre today for, if you don't mind me asking?"

            "We're going to find a place that we had seen before and fix it back up," she replied. "We needed a place to put the Epoch while we're not using it.  We talked about it and decided that it would be better to not have it at as public a place as the castle.  It needs to just disappear and no one but us really know where it is.  We need everyone to think that we dismantled it."

            "Would that be them, Princess?" 

            "Yes," she said, waving her arm at the flying ship that had just come over the tops of the trees.  "That's them."

            It landed about twenty feet away, the force of the wind blowing her ponytail backward.  Lucca didn't bother to turn the engine off, she just lowered the cockpit down as Marle and the chancellor ran to it.    

            Marle sat down in the back seat next to Crono, who was asleep again.  She strapped herself in the seatbelt.

            "Be careful, Princess Nadia! When do you plan on returning?" he asked, handing her the bag she had packed full of peasant clothes.

            "We'll be there for a few days at least," Lucca said.  "If we have to come back for anything, it'll be at night when no one can see the ship in the sky."

            "The castle will always be open to you," the chancellor said ask the cockpit was raised back up into the ship.  "You're always welcome!"  He ran back toward the steps as the engine's burners were being ignited.

            The ship's burners switched on, lifting them up into the sky once again and they were off southward to Porre.

            The trip took, in all, about twenty minutes to travel the distance between the castle and the woods just north of the village of West Porre.  The Epoch was a fast piece of machinery.  It flew so smoothly in fact, that Crono slept most of the way until Marle elbowed him in the ribs for snoring too loudly.  

            Lucca had already cleaned out a lot of the clearing where Frog's home had been, with the help of Fritz and Elaine.  They helped her for nothing; just getting to ride in the Epoch was enough for them.  She did end up having to show them the way out of the forest, though, so they could go to town and get different supplies to build with.  They had needed a ladder; the old one was nowhere to be found.  The bed and everything else that had been there was gone, as well.  

            The single room abode had been cleared out, cobwebs, spiders, and snakes removed.  The floor had been swept and the entrance squared off to make a door.  

            Crono, Lucca, and Marle stepped out of the Epoch, looking around.

            "Looks almost like we left it in 600 A.D.," Crono said, walking over to the entrance to the cave.  They climbed down inside and Lucca flipped on the light switch she had installed on the wall.  There was a small electricity generator in the corner with a gas can a few feet away.         

            "Well, guys, this is home," Lucca said, looking around.  There was a hardwood floor and wall paneling where only dirt had been before.  Crono's eyes darted around the room, from left to right.  He turned around in a circle, still examining the room.

            "Hmm….not just yet…." He said, and pulled a picture frame out of his pocket.  Inside the frame was a picture of Crono, Lucca, Marle, Robo, Frog, and Ayla.  

            Crono picked up a nail out of a bag on the table in the middle of the room and Lucca handed him her hammer she had hanging off her belt.  He pounded the nail into the wall across from the ladder.  He hung the picture there carefully, making sure it was straight.

            "There," Crono said, satisfied with himself.  "Now, it's home."

            "You know….There's only one thing missing from that picture, Crono," Marle said thoughtfully.  Crono turned to her.

            "What's that…?" he asked, a tad puzzled.

            "Magus."

            Crono took a double take of the picture.  It did seem that he was missing, though he had never noticed it before, as many times as he had looked at it.  Now that she had mentioned it, the picture didn't look quite right.  

            "Well, what exactly can we do about it…?  If he wanted the picture taken with him in it, he knew we were having it taken, so it's not our fault he's not in it," Lucca said, going back up the ladder.

            "We could go get everybody and have it taken again with Magus in it this time," Marle said, looking up at Lucca from the floor.  Lucca looked down from the top of the ladder with a raised eyebrow.

            "Do you really think he would come just to have a picture made with us…?"

            "We could leave tonight and find out," Crono shrugged.  "There's no harm in trying."

            "…hm…I suppose not…." Lucca said, continuing up the ladder.  "C'mon, we have to go into town and get those bedframes and mattresses, it'll take two trips!"

            Crono sighed, looking at Marle and putting his hands on his waist.

            "Time to go to work," he said, starting up the ladder.

_______________________________________________________________________  

            "Pull up, pull up, pull UP!!!" Cloud yelled at the blond man at the helm of the Highwind, the only airship in existence.

            "We're gonna crash, Cid!!!" said the girl holding frantically onto the control panel.  He held onto the cigarette between his lips, tilting it up as he pulled backward on the steering column.

            "No _fucking shit, Yuffie!!_" Cid screamed back at her, cigarette ashes falling down onto his blue flight jacket.  "I think I _noticed!!_"

            "What th' hell izzat?!" Barret yelled, pointing toward the odd blue spheres all around them.  They were flying past them at an alarming rate, with Meteor closing in on Midgar in the distance.  He tried to dodge them, but failed.  As one came near, it expanded, opening up and swallowing him as it went by.

            "Barret!!" Tifa screamed, but was being dragged inside one of the blue holes herself.  Cloud grabbed onto her, trying to pull her out.  Yuffie clasped onto his leg as he was being pulled in, too.

            "You can't leave me here, you said you'd give me your materia!" she said as the thing closed.  Cid was still trying to keep the ship from crashing.

            Vincent stood in the middle of the ship and calmly let one of the blue apparitions engulf him, while Cait Sith, seeming to catch the hint, jumped to the nearest one and it swallowed him, too.

            By this time, Cid was all alone.  He looked at Meteor, then at the blue spheres.  He sighed, letting go of the steering column and giving up.

            "Ah, fuck it, it's gotta be better than here," he said, throwing himself into the last sphere, letting it open and shut behind him.

            "Gaahhh!!"

            "You're on my hair, Yuffie!!"

            "Both of you be quiet!"

            Cloud, Tifa, and Yuffie were squished up against each other inside of a very small space, taller than it was wide.  They were not comfortable at all.

            "Where are we…?" Tifa groaned, moving as much into an agreeable position as possible.

            "From the texture of the material that we seem to be inside……..it's obvious that we're inside of a _closet_…."

            "Why in the hell are we inside a closet??!"

            "I don't know, Yuffie, but it's locked," Cloud replied, sighing.  He leaned toward the closet door just a tad.  "Hello??!  Is someone there?  Could you let us out, please?!"

            The sound of small footsteps could be heard coming through the house.  

            "We're tired of you people coming in and out of our closet at all hours of the day and night!  It's getting old!"

            The three adults looked at each other, perplexed.

            "What is he talking about….?" Tifa whispered.  Cloud shrugged as much as he was able.

            "I don't know," he replied.  "Um, we're sorry!  Could you just let us out, please?"

            "Oh, fine…."

            The sound of a clicking padlock was heard and the three adults fell out of the closet onto the hardwood floor on top of each other.  

            "Thank you….._sir…?_"

            Tifa looked up from the floor and was face to face with a midget blue creature that resembled a human being in that it had the same body structure, but the head was all wrong.  The creature sighed.

            "You act like you've never seen an imp Mystic before…!" it said, turning around and walking to the nearby dinner table.  He stopped and turned to look at them again.  "Wait….you're not them…get outta here!"

            "We're not who…???" Tifa asked as the imp escorted them swiftly to the front door.

            "Crono, Marle, and Lucca!" the imp said.  He then turned to Cloud.  "Hmm…..you _do _remind me of Crono…..relative of his?"

            "No….I don't think so…" Cloud replied, scratching the back of his head.  The imp shrugged.  "Who is he?"

            "Hmm…thought for sure that you'd at least know him….."

            "Hey, where are we, anyway….?" Yuffie asked.

            "Where are you??" the imp returned incredulously.  "You're in Medina!  Don't you know _anything_??"

            "We…kind of just got here…." 

            The imp glanced back at the closet.

            "….You're not exactly from _around_ here, are you…?" it surmised.  It sighed.  "Oh, my….."  He walked with them over to a map that was hanging on the wall and pointed at the different marked locations.  "You're here in Medina.  To the west is the city of Truce, a little further west is Guardia Castle, southwest is Porre, and southeast is Choras."

            Tifa looked at the map from top to bottom.

            "That's all….?"

            The imp shrugged.

            "It's a small world, after all…." He said, giggling.  It took him a moment to recompose himself.  "But, no, there are other settlements, those are just the major cities."

            "Okay…"

            "There's a ferry that goes to all three cities from the pier just to the west of here," the imp said.  "The fare to Truce from here is 5g, to Porre is 10g and to Choras is 15g."

            "We'll just stick around here for a while…." Cloud said.  The imp nodded.

            "This is a city of Mystics," he said, pointing toward town.  "You're three humans that nobody's ever seen before.  I would suggest that if you were going to 'stick around', you should go southwest to Melchior's house.  He's a hermit weapon maker, he should be able  to give you a place to stay, at least for the night.  And if you want to go back where you came from, I'd suggest that you go and find Crono, Marle, or Lucca.  Your best bet to find them….well….there isn't really a best bet to find them, because they've been known to be all over the place.  But, I'd guess Truce, it's originally where they're from, anyway."

            "Thanks….." Cloud replied as the imp led them to the door once again.  

            "Like I said, head southwest," the imp reminded them.  "The Mystics in town are fickle about new people.  And, uh…" He looked the three humans over.  "You don't seem to be armed.  Good day to you."

            With that, the imp shut his front door to the three humans.  Tifa looked down at her gloveless hands.

            "Where are our weapons….?  

            "I don't know," Cloud responded, clearly frustrated about the subject.  "I had more materia on that sword than one person should be able to _own_…."

            "Hey, I'm weaponless, too, here!" Yuffie pointed out.  "You're not the only one with problems…!"

            "Let's go to town," Tifa suggested, ignoring Yuffie, and nodding her head in the direction of the city of Mystics.  "We're tough enough to handle ourselves, don't you think….?"

~That's the end of chapter 1.  Chapter 2 is coming once I get chapter 3 finished.  I'm keeping myself one chapter ahead so I don't get behind.  Anyway, if you'd like to see a real Chrono Trigger _novel_, then visit and sign the petition at .  Be advised that the site is about to undergo a major revamp, so if it's down when you visit, please don't think that we've gone out of business.  The novel project is very much alive, no matter how often the site gets updated!  We also have a mailing list, so when we do update, you can get an e-mail telling everything that's in the current update.  Thanks!


	3. Encounter

Sorry that took so long, my phone got cut off for a day or two and I couldn't get anything uploaded.  If anybody has any ideas for this story and would like to help me out, the more, the merrier!  R & R, please! ~Sergeant Phoenix   

Chapter 2 ~ Encounter

            "Here, that'll be 15G," the clerk said at the counter of Porre's only café.  It was a nice little place, with a piano in the corner.  The only thing strange about the scene was a kilwala sitting at the piano, playing a tearfully sad tune on the ivory keys.  There wasn't another piano player like him in the world or so the frequenters of Porre Café said.  Crono certainly hadn't ever seen anything like him.

            "So, what're you kids up to today, eh…?" the clerk said, handing them their plates of food.  Crono and Lucca's had eaten two large plates of corned beef surrounded by carrots, potatoes, and cabbage while Marle had a bowl of clam chowder.  The clerk handed them three mugs of apple cider as they handed him empty dishes.

            "Not much, Nick," Crono replied, gulping cider out of his glass.  "Just running around."

            "Ah…just being kids?"

            "If you want to call it that, I guess," Crono said, digging into his plate.  He stopped just long enough to point a finger at the clerk.  "But, we're not kids."

            "Oh, I know," Nick replied as he began to wash out a glass.  "But, just because ya aren't kids anymore doesn't mean ya can't act like it."  He leaned forward to whisper, looking around and making sure no one was paying any attention to him.  "You couldn't go and get another box of jerky seasoning in Choras, now, couldja…?  Gotta have it to make some more jerky, if I order it now, it won't be here for another week.  Hoppin to Choras and back should be nothing for ya!"

            "Hmm….Lucca, do we need anything from Choras….?" Crono asked, turning to her in the bar stool.

            "I…"

            Lucca was just about to answer his question when the bell rang at the entrance to the café, meaning that someone had come inside.  The door clattered shut behind the man with long silver hair and a sword on his back that would make the best of knights think twice.  Everyone seemed to cringe in their seats a little as he passed them, making his way toward the bar.

            Crono seemed unaffected, drinking from his mug like nothing had happened while everyone else in the room was deathly quiet.  The only sound that could be heard was the predictable clunk of a pair of boots on the hardwood floor.

            And Crono gulping cider.

            But, then he stopped.  

            The man was looking at him.  He was watching him from only a few feet away.

            Crono watched the man's eyes intently.  

Were they……_glowing_…_?_      

The man's eyes gave off a cool green hue.  They were studying every fiber of his being, boring down into the depths of his soul, and judging him for everything he was worth.  They seemed as though they could set fire to anything they turned their gaze toward.  There was nothing in the room more captivating.

They weren't menacing or angry eyes of any sort.  They were calm, just as his posture was calm, nonchalant, apathetic.  The kind of person that you thought could outstare the devil himself.  The walls and ceiling could cave in and he would still be there, just as detached from the world as he was before.

It was a relief to hear him speak.

"May I sit here…?" he said, gesturing to the bar stool between Lucca and Crono.

"Yeah…..s'sure…" Crono replied.  He didn't really care if the man sat there, but he quickly found himself wondering what would've happened if he had said 'no'.  And just as quickly, he decided that he didn't want to know.

The clerk swiftly and efficiently poured the man a mug of cider and sat it on the counter in front of him.  The man sat down in the stool and picked it up.  

"Here's a gift to ya, newcomer, on th' house," he said, trying to mask his nervousness with a tiny smile.

The man nodded, allowing the clerk to go and attend to other customers at the far end of the bar.  He turned to Crono.

"Where am I?"

Crono and Marle exchanged glances.  

"Well….you're in the city of Porre, on the southern continent," Marle replied, a tinge of anxiety in her voice.  As she watched him take a drink of the cider, her eyes drifted down to a hanging pendant on a gold chain.  It was a deep violet, almost red hue encircled in a gold band.  She tried her hardest not to stare at it, but the pendant…was so much like her own.  She quickly tucked her own pendant down into her shirt, looking over at Lucca.  Lucca seemed to be a tad uneasy as well.

"We should be getting back," she commented, finishing off the rest of her cider.  "We've got those mattresses to take back and then we have to go to Choras."

Crono nodded in agreement, handing his mug to the clerk.

"Seeya later, Nick.  Seeya, man," he said to the man in the stool next to him.  "Have a nice stay in Porre."

Crono, Marle, and Lucca exited the café, letting the door clatter shut behind them.

The man in the stool motioned for the clerk.

"Where is Choras…?" he asked.

"Choras…?  It's a city on the southeastern continent, a pretty decent distance from here," he said, a tad perplexed.  Who was this man that he didn't know where the city of Choras lied on the planet?  He dismissed the thought, not wanting to become involved with him.  "The boats go that way once or twice a day, but it takes a few days to cross the ocean.  I wouldn't go to Choras unless it was something important, like for medicine or just for a vacation."

The man was quiet then, watching vacuously the bubbles in the mug on the bar in front of him.  He swirled the liquid in the glass, a small bit of it plopping down onto the counter.

"…..Choras……"


End file.
